aliM-1yearinchina: September 2011

Our trip to Yu Yuan Garden

Yu Yuan Garden is like "Chinatown in China." It's a system of narrow streets and pedestrian alleyways surrounded by various shops and stands selling everything from "designer" watches and bags to Chinese style kitchenware to scarves to souvenirs. You can also find interesting Chinese food here, but my feeble stomach couldn't have handled that this weekend. It has a lot of reconstructed traditional Chinese architecture mixed with modern styles. Apparently, there is a real garden in this area, but the bazaar is so vast that we couldn't find it.

This is a look down the main street just as you get off of the metro.

This is a Chinese bank I think. This picture also shows how nobody pays any attention to traffic rules. You just go when you want to go, whether you are on foot, a bike, moped, or car. Whatever you do, you have to COMMIT, or you'll get run over.

Look at all those people!

This is a special Chinese magic rock. At least I think it is. There was a caption underneath it written in characters and tons of people were touching it and taking pictures.

You can see some of the shops here. They sell a bunch of useless pretty things that tourists love.

We're planning a trip back here to find the actual gardens. That, too, is done up in a traditional Chinese way to make small things appear larger than they actually are. There's not a lot of green space in the city, so it should be an interesting trip.

Check back soon!

posted under around Shanghai | 1 Comments

A Random Assortment of Pictures!

Since I didn't have access to this blog until now, I have a boat load of pictures that are uncategorized that I'd like to share.

Here are some pictures from our hotel room:

This one is a sign from the night table. It's hilarious because they called us "Your Excellency." This kind of translation formality is all over China, and it's equally hilarious every time.

This is the view from our hotel room on the 15th floor. You can see how many tall buildings there are in this city. It spans for 360 degrees.

Here are some pictures of our apartment on campus (of course, we hadn't unpacked and there is only dorm furniture...not very homey, but it's nice):

This is the view from our balcony (which is off of our bathroom...kinda strange):

Here's the bathroom (Western style toilet...SCORE!!!)

Here's the living room. This is what you see when you first walk in. The bathroom is on the left and the bedroom is on the right.

Another view of the living room with the television (there are about two stations in English...sometimes)

Here's the bedroom with the armoir.

And here's our bed.

Now, the funny thing is that Adam and I were given two separate rooms right across the hall. "My room" does not have a kitchen or a washer, but his does. BUT, his room is very small (it's the same one everyone who is not in a couple got, so we lucked out with double the space!). Here's his room:

And here is the really neat forest that is on our campus:

And finally, here are some pictures from our travels around the city so far.

This is Adam by the Pearl Tower (I don't know if that's what it's really called, but everyone here calls it that).

Here's a temple we found on our first day. The first floor is all stores. Commercialization.

HUO GUO!!! My first hot pot meal. This was everything it is cracked up to be. Absolutely delicious. We had a wonderful waiter who spoke very good English and ordered a variety of things for us, so we tried many different things. Basically, it's a giant pot of simmering broth that you dunk meat, seafood, and vegetables into to cook (like fondue). Then, you ladle it into your bowl and enjoy!

Here's my bowl. No, that's not a peppermint patty. That's a fish something or other. Strange looking, but tasty.

Here's a view of some of the tall buildings in Shanghai. The tallest one you can see is the tallest in the city. It's over 100 stories high and looks like a bottle opener. These buildings span 360 degrees around the entire city. New York ain't got nothing on Shanghai.

The Bund. The Pearl tower and the bottle opener building by (almost) night.

The Bund again. This was taken on the river cruise we took on the river that divides the city into Pudong (East) and Puxi (West).

Chinese squat toilet. Actually not as bad as it seems. But thank God we have a regular toilet in our apartment! Actually, most places that we've been to have at least one Western toilet in the stalls.

Anddddd saving the best for last. These kind of weirdo little boy lover stickers are all over the city. This one is on both of the air conditioners that are on the outside of our apartment building.

So, that's a little taste of our travel so far. More pictures to come!

posted under campus life, city life, food | 3 Comments

Our First Day in Shanghai*

We arrived successfully in Shanghai on the evening of August 23 and got to our hotel around 9:30pm. The first night we were here, Adam and I went out to explore around our hotel. We found a Family Mart (like a 7-11) and stopped in to buy shampoo and conditioner, water, and some snacks. Everything was in Chinese! I know this sounds like an obvious observation, but it was still shocking since it’s something I’ve never experienced before. The only way we recognized some of the items was because the labels and colors on the containers are the same as in the U.S. Also, we happened upon some of the best cookies I have ever tasted. I don’t know what they’re called because the label is all in Chinese characters, but they are little balls of chocolatey wafery goodness.

After that, we stopped by a food stand on the side of the road. This guy had an assortment of skewered goodies: meats, fish, veggies, bread. We picked out a bunch of different things and he grilled them up for us. Since it was our first meal in China, we stayed relatively safe; although we did try to be somewhat adventurous by choosing two skewers of hot pink meat that we couldn’t identify. It turned out to be chicken.

The meal cost four and a half US dollars for us both to eat.

The next morning when we woke up at 5:30am (darn jet lag!), we got ready and went down to breakfast where we met the rest of the group of teachers who will be living in Shanghai. Everyone is really nice and feels equally unprepared for this experience, so that was comforting! We had the whole day to ourselves, so we all went out exploring Shanghai with our program coordinator, Qing Qing (pronounced “Ching Ching”). She helped us buy cell phones and power outlet adapters (both of which you have to bargain for in Chinese, with the seller starting with a price that gives them a 10,000 % profit margin. We’ve been told to offer 10-15% of the initial offer when trying to negotiate). Then we took the metro to the People’s Square (like a giant mall) and had lunch. I’m not really sure what I ate…it was a container of “mixed meat in chili sauce” and a stir-fried vegetable that I had never heard of before. It tasted good, and I didn’t even get a stomach ache!

After that we went to the Apple store (the entrance is a giant glass pillar with a spiral staircase that leads you to the underground store. Very impressive), and then home for a rest before heading out for dinner. I finally got to eat hot pot! I’d been looking forward to this for months! It’s a giant pot of chicken broth (or other kind of broth) in which you dump thinly sliced beef, seafood, dumplings, and veggies. You wait for everything to cook, then you take it our and eat! At the end, you have a delicious broth flavored by all of the foods to drink as a soup. It was everything I wanted it to be.

This morning we begin our orientation and hopefully will find out the subjects and age groups we’re teaching. I’ll let you all know how that goes! Oh, and PICTURES to come, I PROMISE!!!

Happy travels-

*I know this post is like a week and a half late BUT...Blogspot does not work in China. It's blocked because google and China don't really like each other very much. I had to get a VPN (first I had to get a computer...THAT was a trip to do in Chinese!!!), which allows me to get onto blocked sites like blogspot, facebook, and youtube. NOW I will be able to update this blog regularly. YAYYYYY!!!!

posted under arrival, city life | 0 Comments